Chuck Warnock has coined a phrase for getting off purpose in life. He calls it priority drift.
“Priority drift.” I made that phrase up to describe the state I found myself in a couple of weeks ago. Simply put: my priorities had drifted. I found myself spread too thin, doing too many good things, and not doing the things I felt called — even compelled — to do.
His post has some very practical and helpful tips that he uses to help him stay focused.
I find that it is useful to constantly ask “why?”. Why am I doing whatever I end up doing and does it further the goal? We need to be able to individually and as a body be unafraid to ask “why?” about what we are doing.
If some ministry or activity doesn’t move the ball down the field, then we need to be able to cut it out and try something different. This is hard for us humans because inertia sets in and usually every ministry, no matter how ineffective it is, has a constituency that insists on its continuance.
Leadership must have the freedom and the ability to make the difficult decision to pull the plug. A large portion of leadership is having and using the discernment to decide what activities get our time and attention both individually and corporately.